Not Food

February 18, 2013

On the first day of an Australian heatwave, you shut and darken all the doors and windows of your home. Underneath the corrugated iron roof lies a layer of insulating seaweed. The hours pass in a dim and listless obscurity, until eight o'clock - or perhaps nine - when it has become cool enough outside to open up the windows. After dark, all the houses are empty, and from every garden comes the sound of quiet voices, relaxing into sociabilty.

Perhaps at midnight you carry your mattress on to the lawn, where a mass of pinky-white oleander flowers, sweeping to the ground beside you, reflect such brilliance from the moon that you must needs turn the other way...Sand and grit are everywhere, and flies of course, and no water for the garden. And all the talk is of the bushfires to the north.

When the change comes, which may be in five days, or in fifteen, the wind swings around quite suddenly, and a great freshness blows up from the sea. Doors bang and the trees bend the other way and the temperature may drop 20 ° in half an hour. Everyone collapses.

Today's heatwave, with its bushfire-scented winds swooping through doors and windows flung open when they should have been closed early on, brought to mind this (edited) passage from Bowen's carefully crafted autobiography, read during another heatwave at the end of last year. As we sat on the verandah, worried by a severe lack of rain, drained by days of incessant heat, these words soothed, for, though written as remembrance for her 1890's Adelaide childhood, there is an odd sort of comfort in knowing they too had searing, drying summers way back then. Drought is no new condition in this country. All managed without airconditioning (as, very un-21st century, do we) and dressed in corsets and neck-high layers of fabric, no doubt. Thankfully, 110 years later, women can dress in diaphanous, loose linen.

Heat, and particularly bushfire season heat, can make for stunning sunsets. Incredible sunrises. Still, Autumn, you cannot arrive fast enough for this little black duck. We've not yet resorted to carting water in, though our neighbours have.

February 13, 2013

For some time now I’ve wanted to veer away from writing, in this space, always about food. In part it's because I now make a small, happy living from cooking, something that when the blog began 7 years ago seemed impossible, but I'm also beginning to feel an instinctive and yes, insistent pull to shift this creative focus a little, to lose some weight both physically and mentally, to calm the parts of my mind that automatically, creatively, think Food.

Before I allowed the internet to seep in and destroy my attention span, two distinct and delicious plans were top of mind: a small print run of a book (lots of photos, luscious paper, some quiet, poetic thoughts on food) and a photographic show. And yet, each year I've let other needs wriggle their way in, pushing those good, good plans back another week, another month, another year.

On Monday, during meditation, Eileen asked us to think about what we want - really, really want - way down inside. She has asked us to ask this of ourselves before in the quietness, and I often find a muddied sort of answer comes to the surface, but this week? Ka-pow. There it was in bright, glittering colours before my closed eyelids, the two things I've been actively avoiding. A wee bit spooky - although in an exceedingly good way. It was always there, that Knowing, but I'd accidentally knocked the volume button. Sheesh.

Volume back up now, thank goodness. If it doesn't work out, does it matter? Surely not, for the pleasure and learning are in the doing, not the dreaming.

We're off on a holiday to far off places over the next few weeks, and it's my sincere intention to make all of this make sense while away. Thanks, guys, for reading. Seven years next month! Thanks a bunch. What a gift you've all turned out to be. x

December 03, 2012

Had a run in with a big snake (as you do) last Thursday, not long after we'd arrived while making our way to the greenhouse, intent on opening it up to let some air flow through. It was hot. 38 degrees celsius hot. A slithering sound, low down on my right, made me stop and turn. Disappearing into the broad bean bed was a thick, brown tail, no more than a couple of metres from my open-toed shoes. An Eastern Brown Sssssnake.

Calmly, I closed gates off in that part of the garden and rang the council. In turn, they gave me Tracy The Snake Handler's phone number. Tracy is a cool chick, people; she told me they were all out on that day, having a lovely time in the searing sun. Her advice? To keep doors closed and, when outside, stamp around (in boots) 'cause snakes respond to vibration. Reminded me of Barry White - "I lurve the sexy slither of a lady snake" - crooning in those deep, base notes in the brilliant Whacking Day episode of The Simpsons. Snakes, even deadly ones, have a part to play in the eco system. Respect them, and in all likelihood they will return the favour.

November 07, 2012

The Reader's Digest Family Health Guide (1978 edition) says, "learning to relax is diffcult, a skill that needs to be learned". It is. For years I was a good sleeper, one of the best, out like the proverbial light and practically comatose for a solid 8 hours each night. Our life has been surprisingly stressful these last few years and that stress, and not being able to release it, turned me from good to bad. Sleeping badly is completely soul-destroying.

Meditation has helped. No, that won't do. Meditation has been LIFE changing, and I thought that maybe some of you out there (in Melbourne at least) might have the same problem, in which case my beautiful, gentle teacher, Eileen, is running a Sleep Soundly Workshop on Sunday the 18th of November.

June 19, 2012

The garden I grew up in shaped who I am today, no question. The camellias that line the back fence conceal - just - the bushland behind, a wilderness the neighbourhood kids owned in a way that, I am sure, kids today do not. The keenest of childhood memories revolve for me around exploring it for hours at a time and those camellias, they were the signal that we were almost home, a back fence as familiar to us as a front fence is for other families. To this day the camellias remain as beautiful as they always were, with the added bonus of 30 odd years of lush, abundant growth.

Dad's garden is the best in the street. Again, no question. Always has been, always will. An enormous magnolia - as old as me - presides over the front garden, providing deep shade from the summer sunshine that fills the front of the house, gives some privacy, cools the hydrangeas that grow right up against the bricks. Even though mum works the garden too, it is dad who is forever being called inside to the phone from it, he who oils the tools, digs the holes, lifts the bulbs, starts the seeds.

There's a lot crammed into their quarter-acre block, but nothing there is planted without care, love or skill. It makes me unhappy when I hear people talking about ornamental gardens as though they are some sort of whimsical folly; as though growing food is the only thing one should, morally, do.

Flowers matter. No flowers. No bees. No heirloom veg for you and me. So yes, grow some veg, but don't forget to make your garden a place you (and others) want to be.

On our return we stopped at Frogmore Gardens, on a bend in the road between Trentham and Blackwood. Stunning hardly begins to describe the place, but you must ask to see the enormous gardens - there's no automatic entry, so smile and be nice. When some of the most impressive vistas you're likely to see in such a quiet, calm space - oh, the colours! - open up, you'll be glad you did.

Breathtaking. No question about that. Will have to go back with more than just 3 frames left in the blad...in fact, I can hardly wait for spring.

October 12, 2011

"Creativity is always enhanced by a constraint. This is true in filmmaking, music, painting, writing, and even photography."

Wish that I could adequately convey just how compelling I find C.J. Chilvers' manifesto, one espousing that less, photographically-speaking, is more. Read it. It's free. It takes seconds to download and if we substitute the word photography for almost any creative pursuit one could care to imagine, it has a freeing, lasting resonance.

Loading up the Holga with a roll of black and white tonight. Constraint is good.

October 05, 2011

An unexpected gap in my day. A little window, spent peering into the archive.

Christina and Denise, both writers whose elegant words and images never fail to make an impact, asked me to sort through 7 posts which define this space. Can't refuse a request from such wise, warm women.

The moment I decided to share the film photos in posts is the very moment this place began to feel like home. At the beginning - oy, really, it's so cringe-worthy I could almost press delete on the first two years - I was sure it was words that people would want (if they wanted anything at all, was my thinking). Turns out it's the pictures and an economic use of words that draws people in. Having tried just about everything I could - for more than a decade - to avoid making pictures, it is, in the end, what makes me happiest. May have taken me a while to find my feet creatively, but found them I have. Blogging's been..interesting. Unexpected. Delightful at times.

There was a seventh question - most under-appreciated post...well, I don't feel as though any posts have been under-appreciated around here. Any reading done by anyone feels like a gift, really. Thank you.

Because both Christina and Denise suggested this excercise to me, I'm going to offer it (with no obligation to do so, naturally) to Jessica, Claire, Julie, Sophie and Elaine.

September 16, 2011

A few things to think on before we head off into the hills for the weekend (those daffodils aren't gonna pick themselves):

Any post that attracts hundreds (perhaps, by now, thousands) of comments is worth reading. Shauna of Gluten-Free Girl wrote about the way in which she's being attacked silently and anonymously from some corners of the web and it broke my heart. It's a long post, so you may want to skip halfway down straight to the relevant bit. Next day, an article in The Guardian Weekly (Jo and refer to it as The Cardigan Weekly for some reason), a piece by Tim Adams titled How the Internet Created an Age of Rage got me thinking. Again, a long-ish read, but the part that spoke volumes arrived, for me, in the final paragraphs.

Arthur Schoepenhauer wrote well on the subject 160 years ago: "Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality," he suggested. "It is a practice which must be completely stopped. Every article, even in a newspaper, should be accompanied by the name of its author; and the editor should be made strictly responsible for the accuracy of the signature. The freedom of the press should be thus far restricted; so that when a man publicly proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of the newspaper, he should be answerable for it, at any rate with his honour, if he has any; and if he has none, let his name neutralise the effect of his words. And since even the most insignificant person is known in his own circle, the result of such a measure would be to put an end to two-thirds of the newspaper lies, and to restrain the audacity of many a poisonous tongue."

I like it. Doesn't mean I'll be posting pics of my family online soon, but worth thinking on. (Also, isn't the word "rascality" just fantastic? Hope to work it into my vocab, most especially as spellcheck didn't like it one bit...)

There's a rawness and lovely turn of phrase over at this fledgling blog.

Sharon (hi Sharon!) at FlavourCrusader asked me a few questions about how and why I cook. Always good to think on the whys and while you're there, have a look around the website. If you've got an interesting food story to tell, let her know!